Search engines help individuals to find websites and online sources of information related to any topic of interest. Search engines typically do this in two ways: (1) organic or natural searching, which involves aggregating data from web pages across millions of websites and analyzing the data using algorithms to rank those websites in order of relevance to the particular query; (2) paid searching, which involves allowing websites to target users based on a keyword entered by a user and delivering advertising specific to that keyword by embedding the advertising in specific areas within the organic search results.
A website owner may have his site displayed as part of the search results presented to a user, typically in the “paid section” of the display, simply by paying the required amount. However, there is no such direct way to influence the results of a natural or organic search. Users evaluate the quality of a search engine primarily by the accuracy of its algorithm in returning results of websites that best match their query. Search engines are therefore designed to ensure that the results returned in the organic/natural section of their displayed search results are free from any undue influence, so that the returned results best meet the users' needs and not merely consist of links to companies having an interest in appearing in those results. Accordingly, search engines keep their algorithms a closely guarded secret.
However, through trial and error and considerable research, many of the important factors influencing the rankings of websites in natural searches have been established. At present there are numerous guidelines and best practices related to factors helpful to companies wishing to rank higher in search results. Companies involved in online advertising have great interest in these factors, because the higher a website is ranked in search results for popular queries, the more visitors the site receives. Any improvement in ranking for a website can be highly lucrative for a company selling products or services online, since there is no direct cost for the resulting increase in traffic to the site (and likewise no direct cost for any resulting sales or leads).
These factors have fostered growth of the field of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO practitioners claim to have a higher than average level of knowledge of search engines' best practices, and offer their skills to companies wishing to improve their sites' rankings in natural search results and thus increase traffic to their websites.
SEO professionals generally focus on two areas to influence search engine rankings, called on-page optimization and off-site optimization respectively.
On-page Optimization
Search engines use the content on a webpage or website to understand what words and topic areas to which the page and site are most relevant. For example, a page that only has content related to baseball will be more relevant to “Baseball” than “Surgery”. Search engines use advanced keyword analysis, content analysis, language analysis, etc. to pinpoint the topic areas and keywords to which the site is most relevant. Content in the form of text, sentences and words used in various locations of a web page is the primary determinant of whether a search engine will rank a page for a particular keyword; search engines use the content to build a “score” for the web page.
Off-site Optimization
Given the wide scope of the Internet, it is likely that there are many pages with the same or very similar content structure, keyword usage, etc. that would result in those pages having an identical “content score.” In order to choose which of two pages (A and B) will appear higher in the search result rankings, search engines look for how many other websites link to each page, to determine which of the two has greater “authoritativeness” and “reliability.” Thus if more websites link to page A than to page B, the search engine infers that page A is more relevant, popular and authoritative than page B, and page A will have a higher ranking.
Search engine optimizers seek to influence the ranking of their target websites within the search engine results by attempting to influence the two key factors above. In order to track their efforts, search engine optimizers implement changes to the page or site content, acquire more links from different websites, and then track any resulting changes in rankings (that is, ranking in search results from a given keyword or phrase) to see whether those efforts had any impact on the ranking. Some search optimizers also analyze overall traffic to the target page using web analytics tools (e.g. tools that track and measure visitors to websites), and try to associate increases in traffic with their efforts.
These search engine optimization processes are labor intensive and disconnected. Changes made to page content, or the number of links acquired, take time to be observed by search engines. There is an unknown time delay between those changes being observed and the search engine algorithm re-ranking the page based on new data. Search engine optimizers generally check their rankings for specific keywords only periodically; this further complicates the analysis by distancing the event (e.g. change in site content) from the results (change in search result ranking). In addition, with every change in content or every link acquired the rankings may change—not only for a specific keyword, but for many keyword combinations and related concepts that the search engine may derive on the basis of its analysis of the content. This analysis itself is generally a fluid process.
No single tool is presently available permitting search engine optimizers to automatically track, report and analyze the specific cause-and-effect relationship between their optimization efforts and the impact on search engine rankings and keywords. Furthermore, no tools are available to help visualize the relationship between changes in rankings and changes in traffic. Accordingly, there is a need for a system and method for facilitating search engine optimizers' activities.